Now is the time, yet again, to suggest and support a way to level out the playing field in baseball without the affrontery of a salary cap. Its called, payroll weighted scoring.

What it means is that, in today's game, the Yankees would have to score five times as many runs as the Devil Rays to actually win the game. Thier payroll is more than 5 times higher, that's the divider to arrive at the final score.

Which would mean that an asshat like Steinbrenner would actually have to build a baseball team instead of just blank-checking his way into the playoffs.

[Update: So yeah, the Yankees won the game 16-1 so they'd have won this one pretty much hands down either way. But still, the concept has merit, if only to piss off King George.]